Proposal: Add `Generically` (or `WrappedGeneric`) newtype to GHC.Generics

[Dmitrii Kovanikov]

+1

This sounds very useful. I also thought about having this `newtype` in the
past and there were even some posts on Reddit about such feature.

Basically, after this change, we can start recommending using
`Generically` + `DerivingVia` instead of `DefaultSignatures`. It always
bothered me that you can have only one default signature and for some
reasons it's implemented for generics in almost every package. It just
seems too arbitrary and ad-hoc to me. `newtype`s feel like a more natural
solution. Instead of relying on whatever `default-signature` provides you
can explicitly specify your deriving strategy.

On Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 9:16 PM Alexis King <lexi.lambda at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> In recent years, the DefaultSignatures extension has seen popular use as a
> mechanism for providing derived typeclass instances via GHC.Generics.
> Although undeniably useful, I have always felt it is somewhat ugly: it is
> mutually exclusive with other, non-Generic default method implementations,
> and it can only be used for one Generic deriving mechanism, so
> implementations must choose between GHC.Generics and Data.Data.
>
> Fortunately, with the advent of DerivingVia, there is a better way: simply
> attach generic instances to a separate newtype, defined like
>
> newtype Generically a = Generically { unGenerically :: a }
>
> instance Generic a => C (Generically a) where
>   ...
>
> then derive instances using DerivingVia as follows:
>
> data Foo = Bar X | Baz Y Z
>   deriving C via Generically Foo
>
> The `Generically` name already exists for this purpose in the
> `generic-data` package, making it a good candidate name for a newtype in
> GHC.Generics (`generic-data` could simply re-export the type with suitably
> recent versions of `base`). An alternate name would be the more traditional
> `WrappedGeneric`. I don’t have much of a preference either way, but I do
> think the `Generically` name is cute, especially when used with DerivingVia.
>
> I believe this type should be in `base` because it is
>
> (1) clearly generally useful in the same way that similar newtypes in
> `base` like `WrappedMonad` are (and probably even more so),
>
> (2) extremely lightweight in terms of additional API complexity (it’s just
> a newtype),
>
> (3) isn’t worth depending on a separate package for, encouraging a
> proliferation of (possibly name-conflicting) newtypes in individual
> packages if it isn’t in `base`, and
>
> (4) is an opportunity to add instances based on `Generic` for classes
> already in `base`.
>
> Overall, it’s something that would feel right at home in GHC.Generics to
> me.
>
> As a final note, whichever name people prefer, it would of course make
> sense to provide an analogous `Generically1` or `WrappedGeneric1` type for
> `Generic1` (as `generic-data` does as well).
>
> Alexis
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